


does it have a name?

by charcoalsuns



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, F/F, Misunderstandings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-30
Updated: 2016-09-30
Packaged: 2018-08-18 09:18:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8157089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charcoalsuns/pseuds/charcoalsuns
Summary: A chronology of scenes on the way to yes, featuring two herbalist apprentices and a supporting cast of plants.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I was writing a story about a missing blue moon. I'm not sure what happened.
> 
> disclaimer 1: this is not a true-to-life depiction of kampo medicine
> 
> disclaimer 2: this is not a wicked AU
> 
> hope: that this is even slightly as enjoyable to read as it was to write!

  


It is a cold day in hell when Chizuru realizes she is capable of hating another person. 

At least, she thinks she is, with short breaths visible before her nose and a pulse running away against an opponent she can’t pin down, as she looks across the room under the surge of some strong emotion that she’s sure she’s never felt before.

She staggers to her feet, worn soles sinking in sand and slipping on the patches of ice that haven't yet disappeared into the loose ground, and weaves temporary protection around the roots and sprouts of all the plants she'd disturbed. Hardy they might be, but even these varieties of desert thyme would go into shock at the sudden change in their environment. 

On the other side of the room, the new apprentice – _Miyanoshita_ – is repairing the burst water tank with a deft, quick hand. Her other stretches toward the ground, palm down, stilling the sand just enough for Chizuru to find her footing. 

Her cheeks are warmer than the disrupted air, and she keeps her thanks buried beneath instinctual apologies, spilling them forth like carbonation from an evidently bottomless bottle of incompetence. 

Miyanoshita smiles sweetly, surely, as she restores the room to its regular low-oven temperature. The ice melts, providing the herbs with slightly more water than they require by day; Chizuru, heart mutinous in her chest, tries to tell herself they won't be affected by her mistake. Eight months into her own apprenticeship, and she's still holding onto spells for too long before release, still causing minor dents in nearby metal objects. Still exploding them, apparently, as if her slow improvements hadn't happened, as though the arrival of someone new and talented and confident had thrown her true abilities into sharp relief. 

Chizuru is anything but relieved when she releases the plants she’d managed to secure and looks around, to see everything how it should be, not a rock out of place. 

"Are you all right, Sasaki-san?" Miyanoshita asks, breath hardly short from when she'd run into the room in her rush to offer help. Her voice is pitched in a tone Chizuru doesn't want to call _patronizing_ , but it is a good many degrees softer than her usual exuberance, and feels like accommodation she doesn't need. 

It's been about three and a half months since Chizuru last found herself in tears at work, but when she nods and gets to her feet, ignoring the hand Miyanoshita reaches down to her, the past few days claw up her throat – a reminder, and a reproach.

  
  


* * *

  
  


"Are you sure you're all right?" Yui sounds as bright as ever, pressed like comfort against Chizuru's side as they sit on one of the park's low brick walls, hot tea and _yakisoba-pan_ waiting in growing shadow beside them. 

Chizuru rubs her hands down her face, willing her eyes to stop producing tears, already. By now, she's learned to look past them, and especially here, under the judgment-free umbrella of Yui's encouragement, she tries to unblur her sight. 

"I will be," she resolves. She blinks out across the lake, where sparkling ripples continue on and on. "I thought I'd never survive my first week, after all, and here I am. She's just... so _good_ , you know? A natural, and adaptive, too. In a different way than Misaki-san is, because _we're_ meant to be at some similar level with each other, as apprentices, but. I've really got so far to go." 

Yui smiles, butts her head into the side of Chizuru's before turning toward their takeaway dinner. "Shouldn’t go anywhere without this, first," she says, and opens a can of green tea with a soft _ch-clink_ and _hiss_. Behind them, a patch of bluebells echoes the sound, expanding it into a glass-bottle and brass rhapsody of trilling chimes and smooth, mellow runs. Chizuru feels better already. 

She taps her steaming can against Yui's, spirits lifting as she straightens her spine. "Thanks, Yui. Here’s to you, and—"

She'd seen it coming as soon as gratitude had formed on her tongue, but Yui's elbow still digs into her side like the point of a shovel. There's a bruise there, Chizuru swears, permanent by years and no less invisible; she winces for the tradition of it as she directs suspended tea back into its can. 

Unapologetic, Yui grins. "Save your sentiment, Chizuru," she says, "Don't you have a rival to beat?" 

"A—" Chizuru looks at her, conscious of the silence from the flowerbed at their backs. Her face warms, again. "She's not. I'm not..." 

"...Not what?" nudges Yui, when silence begins to swell over the drumbeat in Chizuru's ears. "Not doing your best because she's doing the same?" 

Chizuru hesitates, watches as someone skips across the water, several meters away from its bridge of neat, wide stepping stones. Droplets scatter through the air at every touch of their feet, even as ripples flicker undisturbed beneath. "I don't think she sees me that way," she says at last. "I think she probably wonders why someone like me is even there. And, there's nothing to _beat_ , we're helping in the shop and learning how Misaki-san works. And I don't... I can’t hate her. She's just... there. Too."

"Hmm," Yui says, a light, lilting question. "You sound like you're trying to explain yourself." 

Slumping again, Chizuru sighs. "Yeah. Not doing a very good job of it, either, huh." 

Yui crushes her empty plastic wrapper into a ball, floating it toward the waste disposal a few trees from theirs. "Well," she says, raising a brief, happy fist when her projected arc lands perfectly, "I've known you for how many years, and I'm not totally sure what you mean. Even though I could guess." 

"Please don't." 

Another toss away, a poor duck startles at the energy in Yui's answering laughter, flapping through several lily pads before settling in place again. Chizuru, despite the state of her worry at her own transparency, despite the prospect of another day tomorrow spent feeling intimidated and inspired and irritated, probably, endeavors instead to soak up all the peaceful, companionable _safety_ of the present moment, and makes plans to take the Nanboku down to Yui's station, next time.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Work bag balanced over one shoulder, as the pedestrian crossing light glows red, Chizuru looks up toward a dishwater sky. The morning's accidental rainstorm has mostly cleared, but a layer of clouds remains to temper the sun – aerial cross traffic is much easier to see, and she takes the chance to admire the shifting, woven patterns of the carpets flying stories and stories above the power lines. 

"Sasaki-san!"

Chizuru recognizes her voice immediately, and wishes a hole would open up below her feet to transport her at once to the pavement before the shop. Then, she wouldn't have to look away and to her right, where Miyanoshita is waving cheerfully, radiantly, from astride a broom, nor would she have to feel her face light into a smile, of all things, as she raises a hand in mirrored greeting. 

"Good morning, Miyanoshita," she says, and privately wonders how she plans to find the shop from the air. Chizuru is certain the above-street lanes aren't high enough to see over many of Sendai's buildings, and that the rush of cool, crisp wind when flying means the only way to determine which direction to go is by following the amplified scent of herbs and medicines through the city on foot. Unless— Well, unless you were Miyanoshita, and had clearly figured out a spell to counter that. 

"I’ll see you later," Miyanoshita calls, "Unless you’d like a ride?" 

Chizuru stares, empty air stuttering inaudibly from her open mouth. "No," she manages. "It’s fine!" It’s also illegal, she thinks, to land a broomstick at an intersection. 

Her neck is starting to tighten up, but she can’t quite look away as the lights change, the direction of traffic with them, as Miyanoshita gives a last, jaunty wave and speeds forward across the street with her jacket streaming out behind her.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Of course, when Chizuru arrives at the front entrance of the shop, which has surfaced a typical twelve blocks from where it stood yesterday, two brooms are already leaning against the wall: one appearing as competent and sensible as its owner, the other skewed as boldly as the surrounding vines stretch themselves from ground to sky. 

Chizuru swipes her hand across her forehead, ignores the leap of her breath, and tries to ignore the yellow roses that bloom like lemons around the doorway as she walks inside. 

_This isn't jealousy_ , she thinks. _This is civil annoyance, and self-evaluation. I'll try getting here by air tomorrow_. 

"Sasaki," comes Misaki's voice from the flowering grove a few aisles over. "You're here, good – second row of wormwood can have its leaves and florets collected today, you know where to press them, and the honeysuckle needs trimming, it’s disregarding its trellis again." 

"Understood." Chizuru nods, even though Misaki can’t see her, placing her bag on the swept floor beside her chair and switching on the computer. "Online orders, as well?"

"No need," Misaki says, "I put Miyanoshita on them a little earlier." She seems to be even further buried behind magnolia trimmings than before, bark scrapers and pruning shears high at work above her efficient hands, and Chizuru hopes she doesn't hear the sudden scrape of the chair as her own reacts with a tremor. 

It's fine, she knows. Objectively, _reasonably_ , there's more than enough work for all three of them to be going on with; Misaki keeps her connections open for the very purpose of finding more people to help her run the shop, and for inviting those who would also benefit to learn from her trade. But the irrational, easily disheartened part of Chizuru worries at the overlap with her own position like a scar that's nearly smoothed into her skin – invisible to anyone, everyone who doesn't know, and instantly picked out at the slightest reminder to herself. 

Miyanoshita, one step ahead at her every turn, has kept Chizuru glancing back over the same smooth spot as she tries to catch up.

  
  


* * *

  
  


"Sasaki-san?" Miyanoshita has crouched next to Chizuru for reasons unknown, and though she keeps a respectable distance between them, the inquisitive tilt of her head crosses it effortlessly. 

Chizuru pauses in her work, fingers stilling among the tiny stems of wormwood, letting them rustle quietly in protest. She wonders what Miyanoshita could possibly want from her. 

"Do you think you could show me how to pick these flowers?" 

There is nothing insincere in her face, Chizuru thinks, nothing to give her away. The observation slips from her mind as she draws breath, trying to shift her own expression into one less open, less susceptible. 

"I'm sure I can't," she says, a smile on her lips, and that, at least, comes naturally. "You know how to get to the study, don't you? There are definitely a few books on herb gathering there, edited by Misaki-san herself. They'll tell you everything you need to know." 

And because Miyanoshita is the kind of person who doesn't pause, who doesn't startle, she doesn't react beyond a slight widening of eyes to Chizuru's cordial dismissal. Avoidance. It's not like Miyanoshita would gain anything different from her demonstration, and Chizuru knows by now what she needs to do to save herself from embarrassment. 

She doesn't mention the additional notes that are scattered through more and more of Misaki's books, written in her own careful, approved hand. 

"I see! Thanks, Sasaki-san!" Miyanoshita inclines her head, a moth's flutter of a nod, and is turning through vibrant planting beds and toward the back of the shop even before she's fully on her feet. 

She opens the second door with a press of her left hand to its right side, without needing to think about it, because she is also the sort who has no trouble remembering the way to every hidden room, despite being here for less than a week. 

Chizuru turns back to the wormwood plant's many clusters of small red flowers, just beginning to peek out from their buds like drawn drops of blood. She runs her fingertips across them, persuading them gently, watching as they dare to open their leaves and unfurl their tiny petals. One by one, when they're ready to detach themselves from their stems, she guides them through the air until they come to rest in heaps inside the round, cotton-lined baskets waiting around her. 

The delicate routine of her work soothes the sting in her throat, and Chizuru does not blink the hurt from the corners of her eyes.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Another day, Chizuru is at the workstation, list of orders open on the computer screen as she wraps ginger rhizome in recycled paper, packing them into boxes to be flown off to the pharmacy. 

"Sasaki-san," says Miyanoshita, as she pushes a thick square of cloth across the main room table, "Could you teach me the spell that gets wintermelon slime off of bamboo?" 

Chizuru turns to her, sparing a moment to acknowledge the bubbles welling in rare poison within her chest. Less rare, now, it seems. _Cleaning spells_. Is that all Miyanoshita sees in her now? 

Unfortunately, there isn't a treatise on cleanliness on the shop's bookshelves, and Chizuru can only find it in herself to be so rude, especially in a work setting. She nods, hating the flush that rises in her cheeks and doesn't fall, even as she dutifully crushes bitter orange peels into baking soda, even as she applies it to the cloth with a few nudging words and presses it to the offending patch of chopping block. 

Miyanoshita exclaims in what sounds like delight when Chizuru shows her how to repair the scratches and slashes her knife had left in the table, because she'd noticed them and they're simple enough to fix. Their hands are steady, the short distance between them close to tangible as they knit the surface of the bamboo back together. 

"This is really useful," Miyanoshita says, grinning as if this isn't something that would be a cinch for her to figure out herself. "Thanks!"

And when Chizuru goes back to fulfilling online orders, handling the more complex ones with particular care, as Misaki tells Miyanoshita to come help her extract tragacanth gum from the astragalus plants – she wonders at the warm shiver in her spine, the twitch of her breath that hadn't felt _questioned_ at all. It is a strange idea, but her impression that Miyanoshita only deigns to talk to her out of amusement or as some kind of test is beginning, perhaps, to somewhat lack supporting evidence, and Chizuru is left with a wickless candle flame that seems hell-bent on snagging her waking thoughts, instead. 

She seals another box, reinforcing it against rain and bruise. The confident, smoky invitation of black cardamom ventures through the gaps between tape and cardboard, a siren scent she is more than a little hesitant to chase.

  
  


* * *

  
  


A third time, it's a charm. 

They're on the roof of the shop as per Misaki's orders, learning to coax wolfberry saplings into growing upside-down. With the sharp breeze and only a few wisps of cloud that do little to cover the bright, dry sunlight, their attempts to speak to the trees' roots are going unheeded, or unheard altogether. 

Chizuru draws on her memory of a stubborn cork tree from a few months ago, trying to adapt the spell she'd put together then to loosen its hold on the ground. Part calm, to reassure the tree of its continued life; part promise, of rich, well-turned, and open soil it could immediately secure its roots in again; and part explanation, just so the tree knew why it was being asked to flip itself over. 

Not that trees generally tended to care that their fruit was far easier to pick when a person didn’t need to float or climb a ladder past all the lower branches to find them, nor that their roots would be closer to the rain than before, nor, even, that they’d be freeing up space in the planting beds and providing more usable shade – but it is only polite, Chizuru thinks, to share the reasoning with them anyway. 

"What are you doing?" comes Miyanoshita's voice, and Chizuru is not inclined at all to share the spell with her. 

Without looking up or lifting her splayed hands from the soil, she says, "It's to help the roots feel better about moving," but shortly, and only because she can't _ignore_ her. 

To the credit of Miyanoshita's thick skin, she doesn't even consider leaving it there. "Oh!" she says, "I didn't think of that at all!" 

Chizuru has not the briefest blip of an idea of what to say to that. She sees red, which might be because she's shut her eyes to the sun but is mostly because she really doesn't know why Miyanoshita insists on doing this to her. 

"This is why I keep asking Misaki-san to let me work near you," she's saying through the silence, like she can't tell that Chizuru, in turn, asks for nothing more than to stop listening. "I know she doesn't have time to answer all the questions I have, and she told me I could ask you, because you did everything so carefully that you always knew how to explain it."

She's looking at Chizuru with as much assured purpose as always, like she can't recognize an internal crisis when she sees one. 

"I want to apologize if I've been a bother," she says, following deliberation Chizuru hadn't thought her given to. "I know I only have what comes naturally to me, that experience isn't something that can be _taught_. It's just really wonderful to watch you at work! You've figured out so many things specific to the environments here, and I think there's so much I'd like to learn from—"

  
  


* * *

  
  


There would be shards of steel in the gutters across the street, Chizuru thinks faintly, if Miyanoshita didn't have the reflexes she demonstrably does. 

The young wolfberry trees are unharmed, as far as Chizuru can see, which is not much further than the wide, explosive dusting of soil and compost across their section of the roof, on account of the clouds suddenly converging above them, and of the way she can't seem to move. 

"Sasaki-san?" Miyanoshita is leaning across the negligible space between them, and Chizuru has caught fire. "Are you all right?" 

Her breath is hardly short from the rush of adrenaline that must have coursed through her limbs not a minute before. Her voice is pitched in a tone of soft, genuine concern. 

Chizuru nods, instinctual apology buried beneath other, conscious apologies she cannot yet form into words, and raises wavering hands to begin clearing up the dust and damp around them.

  
  


* * *

  
  


She manages to stay calm enough on the subway ride to keep the contents of the _combini_ bag warm without affecting their shape. 

When she reaches the bottom of the stairs, Yui is already running toward her, phone in one hand, the other grabbing Chizuru's shoulder and sliding down at once, chilled fingers wrapping securely but not too tightly around her elbow. 

"Chizuru, what happened?" she asks, leading them right across the busy street and to a bench beneath a zelkova tree. 

Chizuru lets her knees bend, and sits without putting aside either of her bags. She looks at Yui, at the blurred place where her eyebrows wring closer together, nearly in complete shadow at this angle from the streetlamp. "Guess," she says. 

Quick as a breath, Yui understands, and before her next, she lets go of Chizuru's elbow to knock the side of her hand against her arm. "In a moment," she says, "I'm going to listen as you explain, but first! Maybe don't send me such _vague messages_ that will make me think the worst!"

"Sorry," Chizuru says, voice crumpling like the flimsy plastic in her hand. It is the absence of another strike to her side that draws her out of her muddled thoughts. "I'm sorry," she says, looking Yui in the eyes at last, "I was upset, but I shouldn't have— I should have—"

Yui leans gently against her arm; smiles, a sliver of the star it normally is, but the scare has retreated from her face, and though all Chizuru's subconscious can manage now is a single bluebell at the base of the tree behind them, she thinks she can breathe again. 

"Better?" Yui asks, and at her hitching nod, "It's all right! Anyway, you want to apologize to someone else, don't you?" 

For several beats, Chizuru imagines a new hole opening up here, in the middle of the promenade, which would take her back two weeks and one day with none of her memories from that time period intact, except the realization that Miyanoshita was not, evidently, out to prove herself against her, and with which she would avoid this well and true embarrassment altogether. 

It would be a tricky spell, to say the least. 

Chizuru sighs, ducking her shoulders and rubbing her free hand across the back of her head. "She thinks she was _bothering me_ , Yui. She kept coming up to me and asking me things because she really wanted to know what I thought. _Experience_. Have I really—" She pauses, taking the time she does have to clear the mist over her perspective. "I have, haven't I? Eight months... It hasn't seemed like much, but... I've been comparing us in one way, instead of finding different ways we could work together." 

Never gone for long, Yui's grin has returned, and she takes to Chizuru's regret with forward enthusiasm, as usual. "I think you've already found a way to work together, haven't you?" She nudges Chizuru none too lightly. "Only now you know it's mutual."

"It's," Chizuru begins, and trails off. "Yeah. Maybe."

Yui hums, reaches for the handles of the bag crushed between Chizuru's fingers. "In any case," she says, poking through until she finds the label marked _natto_ , "I'm excited to meet her! And don't worry, because I know you are, from what you've told me, I don't believe she'll think there's anything to forgive."

The streetlamp is glowing brighter now, softening the stark, worried edges around them, and as Chizuru unwraps her own _onigiri_ , she looks toward the next day with simultaneously less and more trepidation than she has, turning her apology over and over beneath the light pounding of her pulse in her head.

  
  


* * *

  
  


It was much easier when it was in her head, Chizuru thinks. 

The pavement pounds, an echo under her feet, which are currently trying to dart through a half-lane alleyway to the street she just saw Miyanoshita lean a turn down. 

She bursts into the early sunlight with her broom over her shoulder, in her hand, in the air; leaps on and leans forward, cutting closer to the speed limit than she ever has before. 

"Miyanoshita!" she calls, half her breath lost to the wind. The cars beneath zoom like stepping stones along the street, yellow and blue and red, red, red. 

"Sasaki-san?" She turns for the smallest fraction of a second she can spare, and everything else might as well be grey. 

Chizuru nearly pauses right where she is, fifty meters from the stoplight before them; she keeps her seat, cautious even when her purpose lies elsewhere, and waits until they're both in a position to talk. It’s not the best place for it, but with their lanes otherwise empty, they're as alone as they will be. She tries not to notice the carpets slowing curiously, law-abidingly above them. 

"I want to apologize to you," she says, "I kept seeing you as a rival, when you weren't thinking of it that way at all."

Miyanoshita looks surprised, and Chizuru barely has a moment to declare private triumph before she blinks into delight, instead. "Oh," she says, "but I was!" 

Chizuru, flush rising like a tide, doesn't understand. 

"I want to learn from you," Miyanoshita continues with her moon-bright grin, "and I'm not going to lose to you, either."

The light changes, and she jumps ahead easily, calling her challenge over her shoulder:

"Aren't you coming?" 

She is.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Chizuru manages to get her complete explanation out once they've landed, and left their brooms side-by-side against the shopfront's vast tangle of vines. 

Yellow roses have shifted into daffodils around them as Miyanoshita laughs, apologizes for laughing, and continues. "It's not a problem, not at all," she says between breaths, "and it wouldn't've been, either, if you'd really had reason to treat me rudely." A corner of her mouth lifts further, like a tease on her lips is something Chizuru can handle. "I'm not entirely sure you _were_ being rude, though, Sasaki-san, was that your worst?" 

Chizuru levels a smile at her, courtesy of their even ground. "Just about," she says. And on the heels of a dare, "But I could stand to learn." 

She makes her way past the stilled, gleeful spark in Miyanoshita's face, lets the shop's front door register the press of her hand, and walks inside, calling it another arch victory, another crisp, trembling breeze through a most enticing hell.

  
  


* * *

  
  


"Could one of you go up to the roof and check on the roots of the wolfberry trees we planted last week?" Misaki asks, on a day that dawns in a gentle rainstorm. 

Chizuru's hands are full of freshly unearthed spikenard roots, baskets piled high with their young, simulated-spring leaves following her to the storage rooms, and she meets Miyanoshita's cheery salute with a smile she can't help, with a nod of concession, _for now_. 

As she climbs carefully up and down the steady ladders, checking the temperature and humidity within the bounds of each shelf, she replays a ringing laugh in her mind – a smirk, a capable hand to match – and wonders again at how she'd ever heard disdain where there was only fervent, heedless regard. 

She's on the last wall when the strong swing of the door announces Miyanoshita's presence. Without asking, she directs a ladder next to Chizuru's, better to observe the hibernating ginger roots at her side. 

"Trees are fine," she says, carefree and satisfied, leaning over to watch their meters stabilize. The cool, thrilling scent on her skin lingers between them, earthy rain and whipped-wind intoxication, and even though the ladder is not the only thing holding her up, Chizuru tightens her death’s grip on its rail. 

"That's good," she says, shifting, as if her shallow breath has dripped down to cover the rung beneath her feet. Clouds gather between her ears, heartbeat thundering with abandon. She tries not to look, fails, and nearly falls. 

Close enough to lean toward, Miyanoshita has her head tilted at the slightest angle, smile parallel with a floor that is stainless, holeless, two meters away. There is no escape from the tiny droplets of rain on her nose. "Your charm worked," she says in a rush, and seems to catch herself before she continues. It's an odd sight, to say the least, and she looks away first, which is even odder. "I mean... They're growing without a problem, now. Only stretching their roots up and out, instead of downward, and their branches have adjusted to the different gravity, and their flowers have stopped turning themselves green and are back to being purple, and they’ve started putting out new leaves, and—" 

She freezes, under the touch of Chizuru's fingers to her wrist; turns so quickly Chizuru momentarily fears for her balance; stares, startled, at the intent Chizuru directs toward her, finally understanding, in an impulse as fleeting and electric as lightning. 

Fleeting it is, because Chizuru holds attention like wine in a cupped hand, and electric, as she silently leads them to the ground, more for a breath of space than security.

Her spine threatens to surrender under the gaze she meets – covets – asks: "Do you think, if neither of us can figure out the compression spell today, we could… Afterward, we could try working through it together?" 

She catches light like a beacon, answers in crimson at the back of her neck, and can only think _this must be a warning_ before Miyanoshita’s blinding, earnest grin goes lopsided again. "We could," she says, eyes crinkling at their corners, "What if I do get it to work, though?" 

There’s the faintest tint to her cheeks, pink as the provocation on her tongue, and it is the sight of fallibility that twines Chizuru’s fingers through hers, that pulls her toward the door. 

"Then, you can choose where we go."

  


**Author's Note:**

> hope 2: that you may accept my immense thanks for reading o.o⸝✿° ⁺✧◦⁺ *◦ °


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